Book picks similar to
The Caliphate, The Hijaz and the Saudi Wahabi Nation State by Imran N. Hosein
islam
history
imran-hosein
non-fiction
Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan
Sally Armstrong - 2002
In Veiled Threat, Sally Armstrong introduces several of these women—including the deputy prime minister of Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar—who describe the living hell they experienced as well as the quiet rebellion—clandestine schools for girls and health clinics for women—that took place in an effort to subvert the Taliban's hateful edicts.One of the first Western journalists to visit Afghanistan, Armstrong gives us an insider's view of the deplorable situation. She also provides a broader perspective, leading us through the history of Afghanistan, including the ebb and flow of women's rights. She examines what the Koran actually says about women. She points a finger at the international community for accepting women's oppression in the name of culture, and she accuses the Taliban and other fundamentalist leaders of distorting Islam for political opportunism. While there have been other books about the women in Afghanistan, VEILED THREAT holds a unique position. There have been two autobiographies: ZOYA'S STORY and MY FORBIDDEN FACE; a photo book, UNVEILED; and a book about RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) called VEILED COURAGE. VEILD THREAT is much broader in its approach.
The Conference of the Birds
Attar of Nishapur
He recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace.Sholeh Wolpé re-creates for modern readers the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.
A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman's Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide
Mark D. Siljander - 2008
Siljander takes us on an eye-opening journey of personal, religious, and political discovery. In the 1980s, Siljander was a newly minted Reagan Republican from Michigan who joined Congress in the same generation as Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, ready to remake the world. A staunch member of the Religious Right, he once walked out of the National Prayer Breakfast when a speaker quoted from the Qur'an.But after losing reelection, Siljander dove into the Bible to look for the passage in which the Bible says it is our job as Christians to convert others in order to save them from eternal damnation. He couldn't find it; in fact, he couldn't even find a passage saying that Jesus set out to form a new religion. This discovery was the first step on a spiritual and political journey that started with an in-depth linguistic study of the Bible and led to the discovery that Christianity and Islam share many base words and concepts. In his role as ambassador to the United Nations Siljander began sharing his insights on the connections between Islam and Christianity, with surprising results. A Deadly Misunderstanding recounts Siljander's amazing discoveries as he travels to some of the most remote and hostile places in the world—deep into Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, and India—forging deep ties with both heads of state and religious leaders. What he has learned could radically shift the contemporary religious landscape and help heal the rift between Islam and the West. No Christian or Muslim will be unaffected after reading this book.
Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
Martin Lings - 1983
Based on the sira, the eighth- and ninth-century Arabic biographies that recount numerous events in the prophet’s life, it contains original English translations of many important passages that reveal the words of men and women who heard Muhammad speak and witnessed the events of his life.Scrupulous and exhaustive in its fidelity to its sources, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources is presented in a narrative style that is easily comprehensible, yet authentic and inspiring in its use of language, reflecting both the simplicity and grandeur of the story it tells. This revised edition includes new sections detailing the prophet’s expanding influence and his spreading of the message of Islam into Syria and its neighboring states. It represents the final updates made to the text before the author’s death in 2005. The book has been published in 12 languages and has received numerous awards, including acknowledgment as best biography of the prophet in English at the National Seerate Conference in Islamabad.
Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the American Dream
Rick Snedeker - 2020
This is completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ original vision of America; it was designed by them to be a secular democratic republic built on evidence-based Enlightenment values, emphatically not religious faith.Indeed, the Founders purposefully intended that a high, strong “wall of separation” keep church and state apart in the new nation, while allowing individual religious freedom untrammeled by government—and vice versa. But Christians with theocratic dreams keep trying to breach the wall. Through their efforts, God is now in evidence everywhere in the country—on our money, in our schools, even in high-level-government officials’ speeches. Freedom of — and from — religion is the American promise to all its people whatever their belief—or disbelief. This is how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be, not the undemocratic theocracy zealous evangelicals are trying to force on American society.
HEBREWS TO NEGROES: Wake Up Black America
Ronald Dalton Jr. - 2014
This book will expose the truths that have been hidden by the powers that be in America. Since the European and Arab slave traders stepped foot into Africa, blacks have been told lies about their heritage. This was all by Satan’s design for he is the father of lies. There is an old stereotypical expression that says “If you want to hide something from a Black person, put it in a book.” Well, this is THE BOOK that ALL Black people must read! Since biblical times, there has been a satanic agenda to destroy God’s Chosen People. This agenda still exists today and is carried on by man in many forms. Satan knows who God’s Chosen People are, but for centuries we have been blind to this knowledge even though it’s been right in front of our face. After many years of research, the time has finally come for ALL Black people to know the truth. Inside Hebrews To Negroes you will find the answers to all the burning questions you have wanted ask your parents, teachers and pastors for years. It has been said that the mind has a strong drive to correct itself over a period of time if it can touch some substantial ORIGINAL historical base about itself. This time period is ending and the truth is being exposed! Is this signs of the End Times? The bible says in the last days that knowledge will increase. It also says “In the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:” Knowledge is the TRUTH and Satan’s time is running out. Don’t be left behind. Find out what’s really going on behind the scenes as it relates to BLACK AMERICA then and now. Afterwards you be the judge as to who God’s Chosen People really are and who Satan’s army is really after. AT THE END OF READING THIS BOOK, I GUARANTEE YOU WON’T REGRET IT.
In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
Tom Holland - 2012
No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.
Now You are a Mother
Du'aa' Ra'oof Shaheen - 2012
Whilst motherhood is one of the most rewarding roles, it is also very heavy responsibility that brings many trials and challenges that cannot be covered fully in a single volume. It is hoped that having read this book, readers will go beyond its parameters to learn all they can about how to care for their infants. In the teachings of Islam, the voices of experience provided by our own mothers and grandmothers, and the exchange of ideas, and tips with other parents, new mothers can find guideline to follow as they embark upon the journey of motherhood. the help and advice of doctors, public health nurses and other professionals may also be added to the mother's "support system". Over and above all that, the Muslim mother can and must put her trust in Allah and seek His help and guidance.
The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad
Hal Lindsey - 2002
A bestselling author explains how on September 11th an ancient fight-to-the-death conflict exploded on the shores of the United States.
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Sandy Tolan - 2006
To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.
Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict
John B. Judis - 2014
In Genesis, John B. Judis argues that, while Israelis and Palestinians must shoulder much of the blame, the United States has been the principal power outside the region since the end of World War II and as such must account for its repeated failed diplomacy efforts to resolve this enduring strife.The fatal flaw in American policy, Judis shows, can be traced back to the Truman years. What happened between 1945 and 1949 sealed the fate of the Middle East for the remainder of the century. As a result, understanding that period holds the key to explaining almost everything that follows—right down to George W. Bush's unsuccessful and ill-conceived effort to win peace through holding elections among the Palestinians, and Barack Obama's failed attempt to bring both parties to the negotiating table. A provocative narrative history animated by a strong analytical and moral perspective, and peopled by colorful and outsized personalities and politics, Genesis offers a fresh look at these critical postwar years, arguing that if we can understand how this stalemate originated, we will be better positioned to help end it.
My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross - 2007
Raised in liberal Ashland, Oregon, by parents who were Jewish by birth but dismissive of strict dogma, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross yearned for a religion that would suit all his ideals. At college in the late nineties he met a charismatic Muslim student who grounded his political activism with thoughtful religious conviction. Gartenstein-Ross reflects on his experience of converting to Islam—a process that began with a desire to connect with both a religious community and a spiritual practice, and eventually led him to sympathize with the most extreme interpretations of the faith, with the most radical political implications. In the year following graduation, Gartenstein-Ross went to work for the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity dedicated to fostering Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's austere form of Islam—a theological inspiration for many terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. Shortly after he left al-Haramain—when his own fanaticism had waned—the foundation was charged by the U.S. government as being a source of funds for terrorist organizations. Gartenstein-Ross, by this time a lawyer at a prominent firm, volunteered to be questioned by the FBI. They already knew who he was. The story of how a good faith can be distorted and a decent soul can be seduced away from its principles, My Year Inside Radical Islam provides a rare glimpse into the personal interface between religion and politics.
Mohammed's Koran: Why Muslims Kill For Islam
Peter Mcloughlin - 2017
This Grand Lie turns the entire understanding of Islam upside down. The Muslims who kill for Islam know that our ruling elite are lying to us about Islam.At the very start of the book two things are asked of the reader:if the reader is a Muslim, then he is asked to put the book down so that understanding his own religion better does not turn him into a killer;any other reader is asked to just turn to the first pages of the Koran presented in the second half of the book; if within 5 minutes s/he is not convinced that Islam is a religion of war obsessed with the subjugation of non-Muslims, then that reader is asked to to return to the first half of the book and read that until they are convinced that what is presented in this book was mainstream scholarly opinion in the West before 9/11. One of the ways in which Islam protects itself from non-Muslims is that the normal Koran is encrypted. McLoughlin & Robinson decrypt the Koran. But they know that most people do not want to spend months or years learning the ins and outs of Islam. Most people just want to be left alone to get on with their lives. Yet when terrorism in the name of Islam abounds and the state is systematically deceiving your children, then we all owe a duty to our relatives, our society and our civilisation to know, without any doubt at all, that our ruling elite are systematically lying to us about Islam, the religion of war and terrorism.McLoughlin & Robinson explain the concept of "abrogation" and prove how fundamental this concept is to Islam. They show that any of the verses which our lying leaders pluck out to claim that Islam is a religion of peace has either been garbled or is a verse that has been cancelled.The ordinary man or woman cannot rely on Muslims to tell us the truth (because to Muslims Islam is the only truth and Islam authorizes Muslims to employ deception, for example as Taqiyya or Kitman). We cannot rely on writers, clergy, journalists or academics - because they are either in hock to Muslim donors, or because they are Leftists who are allied to Islam, or because such people are simply too scared of Muslims killing them if they speak the truth. You don't have to believe McLoughlin and Robinson's claims. The book has over 600 references, which link to the work of other acknowledged authorities on Islam (Western scholars, mainstream translators of the Koran, Muslim and ex-Muslim experts). The book shows you what those who went before us in our own society were saying about Islam. For centuries they were warning the West about Islam. And all their warnings have been concealed by the Quisling elite who have sold your descendants into slavery or civil war. It really is that serious.Those shallow ideologues who dismiss Mohammed's Koran because it is not written by Muslims are missing a vital principle: our society doesn't demand that only Nazis explain Mein Kampf, or that only Communists can criticise Marx, Stalin, etc. If there were Christian terrorists whom the Pope would not denounce, then it is the explanations of non-Christians who would be favoured. Our society regards those who are not proponents of an ideology as more credible and more objective critics of an ideology than those who are already indoctrinated by that ideology. As McLoughlin & Robinson show in the first 100 pages, it is precisely this demand that only Muslims can have an opinion on Islam (as idiotic as saying "only Nazis can speak about Nazism") which has allowed Muslims to fool the electorate in countries across the West. If the people of the West had not been deceived by the Quisling ruling elite, every country would have already elected parties who would have kept Islam outside the borders of our nations.
The Knights Templar: The True and Surprising Story Of Histories Most Secretive Order
Patrick Auerbach - 2016
The order of the Knights Templar was founded by Hugh de Payens, a French nobleman from the Champagne region, along with eight of his companions, in Jerusalem around 1119. They originally consisted of a group of knights who protected Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land against attack from brigands and Saracen pirates, after the crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. The order's full name was the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon". They were given quarters next to the temple and adopted their distinctive uniform – white tunics with an eight-pointed blood-red cross. In 1129 they took monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and pledged themselves ready to die for their faith. They were gradually transformed into a chivalric order of warrior-monks who fought with distinction in the Crusades. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history
Al Farooq / الفاروق
Shibli Nomani - 1900
Regarded as the architect of the Islamic empire, Omar established a model political structure that would hold together the growing empire for centuries. Nomani delves into Omar's reputation as one of history's great conquerors and political geniuses, while also examining his pious and just nature, which earned him the title Al-Farooq ("the one who distinguishes between right and wrong"). Under Omar's leadership, the empire expanded at an unprecedented rate ruling the whole Sassanid Persian Empire and more than two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire. As a leader, Omar was known for his simple, austere lifestyle. Rather than adopt the pomp and display affected by the rulers of the time, he continued to live much as he had when Muslims were poor and persecuted.The book consists of two parts: the first deals the events embracing the lifetime of Omar as well as his political achievements, while the second is a detailed examination of his system of government, both political and ecclesiastical, as well as his intellectual attainments, personal virtues and habits.Author and renowned Islamic scholar Shibli Nomani undertook an extensive study of the subject through several years of research in many of the great libraries of the day, including Istanbul, Beirut, Alexandria, Paris, Berlin and London. The result is what many consider to be the definitive biography of Omar "The Great".Upon publication, the book was hailed as a major event in the history of Islamic literature. Originally published in India and written in urdu, the book was quickly translated into several other languages. Celebrated Pakistani writer and activist Maulana Zafar Ali Khan published the English translation in 1900.